Chief Government Whip and Highways Minister Johnston Fernando yesterday said that action would be taken to introduce electronic toll collection (ETC) at expressways to help alleviate traffic congestion, reduce delay, fuel consumption, and vehicle emissions.
He said that a cashier at manual toll collection (MTC) centres in expressways takes around 12 to 15 seconds to collect the toll from a single vehicle and hand back the receipt. The ETC could reduce this to around six seconds and help the vehicles leaving the expressways faster. This would be very helpful during the rush-hours where we usually see lines of vehicles at the toll collection centres, the minister said.
Minister Fernando said that ETCs are currently installed at the Colombo-Katunayake expressway and they would be introduced to other toll collection centres and inter-changes soon.
